Neil Young Archive soon? Possibly maybe

Ask any hardcore Neil Young fan about the singer-songwriter’s Archive project and you’re likely to get a knowing smirk. The legendary multi-volume project has been mooted and dropped so often that most reasonable people despair of ever seeing it during their lifetime.

But Young’s recent promotional activity - at an IT industry conference, of all places – suggests the first tranche of product might finally be nearing release.

Volume 1 (of 5) was promoted as a 10 disc set, with 128 tracks, and archival printed matter (letters, notes, reviews etc) from Young’s first decade as a creative artist, 1963 to 1972. The musical content looks spellbinding.

The bad news? It was promoted at the Sun Microsystems JavaOne conference in San Francisco as a Blu-ray (high def DVD) product - which requires a dedicated player or a Sony PlayStation 3.

But the installed user base of these machines is so comparatively small, especially among Young’s key Baby Boomer demographic, that Music for Grown-Ups would be staggered if Warner/Reprise didn’t also release the Archive on CD, regardless of Young’s well-aired scorn for the technology.

Watch this space …



Gerry Smith